The usual morning.
What was different: it was the first time Aria and I were heading out for monster work since our fight.
I’d had to replace the sabre I was using again. The weapon-shop owner had looked at me wearily but prepared the same model.
He’d told me, seriously, to make the rounds of Centras’s weapon shops and find a good-quality sabre suited to me — or even to change weapon type.
It wasn’t a stubborn loyalty so much as familiarity — the sabre was what I was used to, so I’d keep going with it for now.
The three of us linked up with Zelphy and headed for the Guild — and something was off.
On the second floor, near the counters, an additional board had been put up, labeled Emergency Request.
Most adventurers’ eyes went there, then their expressions soured and they turned to the usual board.
“Did something happen?”
When Novem said that, we got curious enough to go check.
Aria looked interested too. Zelphy’s expression, though — was not great.
What we saw on the board: a search for a party that hadn’t returned by its deadline, and a survey of the area they’d gone to.
“If you don’t come back by the deadline, a search party is sent — right?”
I recalled what Zelphy had taught me. She nodded. But she looked at the names on the paper and shook her head.
“Half right. I only told you the official version. In practice, what they do is investigate why the party that’s lost contact got lost. Bandits, monsters, dungeons — there are endless reasons. So the next people heading that way don’t get eaten too.”
Half right.
The objective wasn’t rescue — it was investigating why contact had been lost.
In other words, rescuing the lost party itself was second priority.
Novem looked at the request, noticed something about the ages of the party members.
“These people… were they hiring an instructor through the Guild, by any chance?”
Zelphy nodded silently and bit out:
“That’s why I told him. Retire already… what’s the point of getting to this age and dying?”
One of the names on the request had a red horizontal line through it.
That meant the name engraved on the Guild card had received the single horizontal scar that signified death.
In short — he was dead.
Fortunately — or not yet, depending on how you looked at it — the five young adventurers were alive.
“H-hey… someone’s going to go rescue them, right?”
Aria looked around. The adventurers’ eyes went to the emergency board, but no one was stepping up to take the job.
”…The veteran adventurer who died was one of Darion’s top-ranked. It’s a town for beginners, sure, but he was a capable mid-tier man. For him to be dead—”
In one word: it was tough.
Darion had a lot of manual-labor jobs, but the lord was actively running monster subjugations and dungeon clears.
Convenient for newly minted adventurers, but a frustration for adventurers past the rookie phase.
You could call it a local-loyalty thing — there were definitely some who stuck around Darion as adventurers, but most, once they graduated, left for towns that suited them better.
“Bad timing. The Guild’s recruiting for the recent dungeon. The lord’s soldiers aren’t back yet either.”
A dungeon had appeared, and the Guild was recruiting adventurers to clear it.
Which meant the parties confident in combat had largely left Darion.
(Right — I remember hearing that.)
The adventurers’ chatter came back to me. I scanned the Guild.
It wasn’t that there were no strong adventurers here. But the fact that they were having to recruit meant there were no takers for the request.
”…I’d heard the Guild pays a reward for taking emergency requests.”
Novem found it strange the other adventurers weren’t biting.
Zelphy:
“Life’s worth more than the reward. Some go for the fame… and the location’s a bad one. A weak party’ll get wiped.”
Not all of Darion was safe.
The areas where people didn’t live — soldiers didn’t have much chance to go sweep them clean.
We were looking at the request near the counter when Hawkins came over.
“Zelphy-san. A moment?”
”…Boss.”
Hawkins, looking more severe than usual, called Zelphy and started talking.
“You’ve seen the request?”
“I’ve seen it. But going by the content, this should’ve been posted a lot earlier. What happened?”
The deadline by which they should have returned was long past.
And yet the emergency request had only gone up today.
”…A clerical error on our side. My apologies.”
“Apologies don’t quite cover it, though. Not your mistake, sure, but lives are on the line. What about everyone else who headed into that area?”
When an emergency request was active, the area was off-limits.
But this time the initial response had been late — there could be adventurers in that danger zone right now.
“Lucky timing, maybe. The parties that hunt that ground as a regular spot are off at the dungeon. Which is why — we can’t find anyone to take the request.”
“Why not have you go, boss?”
Zelphy’s joke. Hawkins didn’t return anything.
(Both of them are a little angry.)
By the sound of it, the dead man might have been someone they knew.
“Um, Hawkins-san. Why did you call Zelphy over?”
When Novem asked, Hawkins apologized to us too.
“It’s a Guild emergency request. We’ll be borrowing Zelphy-san temporarily. The cost and the time will be covered by the Guild on our end.”
We weren’t being counted as a combat asset, apparently.
(Of course.)
The Second’s voice:
“Does the Guild handle this kind of thing differently in different towns? In a place I knew, I’m sure I heard they force you to go.”
The Sixth fielded it.
“Different eras, and different Guild responses for sure… but Darion’s adventurers are pretty low quality at the base level, aren’t they? Probably why this happens often.”
The ancestors were calm about it.
You didn’t need to panic, but it felt a touch dry.
Zelphy’s face went uncomfortable; she sighed, then nodded.
“Can’t turn down a request from you, boss. But — on our end, I want to know how the Guild’s going to move on this.”
Hawkins closed his eyes once, then opened them and answered:
“The upper-level take… it was a clerical error, but a judgment that anyone could have made it. No real disciplinary action will come down.”
”…Boss. That won’t sit with us. That man had a mouth and I didn’t like him, but plenty of adventurers were saved by him. Like or not, I owe him two or three myself. And you’re telling me to accept this?”
The conversation was going somewhere else.
The three of us were getting left behind.
“Zelphy-san’s pulled out for the emergency request, then. So — what do we do today?”
I was thinking about today’s schedule.
Manual labor was fine, but with the three of us together, I wanted to go out for monster work.
I wanted to feel Growth soon, and at the rate things were going I was just getting better at odd-jobs work.
(The other day someone tried to recruit me, even.)
A site foreman had told me to quit being an adventurer and come work for them. I’d smiled bitterly and declined.
It wasn’t an unappealing offer, but I couldn’t support two people on those earnings.
Aria, looking at Zelphy:
“Is Zelphy going to be okay? I mean — even one of Darion’s capable adventurers is dead, you know.”
Novem soothed her.
“It may not be monsters or bandits. An accident is possible too. And — Zelphy-san wouldn’t be going alone, I imagine.”
A party of six, one dead, the rest unaccounted for.
The accident possibility was fairly high.
I was thinking that when the First called.
“Lyle. You go too.”
— Where did that come from? I thought, but the First had reasoning of his own.
The Third backed him.
“That’d be the right move. Apart from this specific job, the basic rule is that Lyle in the mix raises efficiency.”
The Sixth agreed.
“With my and the Fifth’s Skills, finding them would be easy, and dodging risk would be doable too.”
(Right — using the ancestors’ Skills, efficiency goes through the roof compared to anyone else.)
The Fifth’s and Sixth’s Skills in particular, used together, became an absurd Skill.
A map of the surroundings would surface in my head; friend and foe… monster positions, traps, all of that information at some range as you closed in.
But — would Hawkins accept it if I volunteered?
The Second saw it the same way.
“If Lyle says he wants in, will they accept?”
The Fifth—
“What’s the upside? They’re nothing to do with Lyle. And — sticking out too much wastes the Darion-reputation we worked hard to drop, doesn’t it?”
Hearing the takes, the First:
“Upside? Don’t know, don’t care. You let them go and that adventurer Zelphy dies, you’ll sleep badly.”
The Seventh fired back, exasperated:
“Don’t tell me — this is also for Aria? I don’t think it goes that far. If they die here, that’s the level they were at.”
The Fourth, ending the unresolvable thread, asked me:
“Alright — opinions split as you see. Lyle’s take?”
Asked for my take, I reflexively touched the Jewel at my throat.
There wasn’t much upside, sure. But for the First to push this hard, the situation might be dangerous.
The First’s instincts I trusted.
(Can I actually solve this problem?)
Using the Skills, success-rate definitely went up.
I had Skills that good.
But to participate, I needed to talk my way in. With Hawkins, with Zelphy. And Novem and Aria had to stay put.
I thought it over and came to a conclusion.
“Novem, can you wait in Darion with Aria? I’m going to take the emergency request with Zelphy.”
“Step it up a little…”
“Nope. After all that hot air you blew, and this is the result?”
“You left the talking to Novem-chan, didn’t you, Lyle.”
“Phrase it better. Backing down right there — what was that?”
“Negotiation’s something you just grind out over time, I guess.”
“Well, given the context up to now, this is about par?”
“You lot! Is that all you’ve got to say to my grandson?! Lyle worked hard! He held out against Novem and the others coming along right up to the end, and ended up on the emergency request anyway!”
(Stop it! Please don’t defend me any further, Grandfather (Seventh)!!)
On the back of the cart, hiding my face in both hands, ears red, I listened to the Jewel cycle through First-through-Seventh.
I’d just noticed — even covering my ears, the voices came through perfectly.
The fact that nobody around could hear meant they weren’t producing actual sound, but… it was a real nuisance.
Ancestor voices that came through even with ears covered—.
The reason the ancestors were griping was the current situation.
The Guild had put out two carts and prepped the necessary supplies on Guild funds, and we’d set out as a temporary party to investigate.
Zelphy plus the regular three — me, Novem, and Aria.
Plus Rondo and his two — joined the team for this run.
The Guild had also lent us a driver.
“H-hey, you all right, Lyle?”
Rondo was watching me worriedly. Novem, sitting next to me, was the same.
“Lord Lyle, are you coming down with something? You were fine a moment ago…”
Novem looked flustered; Aria looked nervous. She was gripping the red gem at her chest.
Rachel struck up a conversation with her.
“Is that one of those Gems with sealed Skills? You don’t see those much these days. How many Skills are in it?”
“Uh, um… five, counting mine, I think.”
Aria, nervous, answered. Rachel’s eyes lit up.
“That’s amazing! As a Magic Implement that’d be a hundred to two hundred gold coins. Red — front-line Skills, right? Are the combos okay?”
Skill combinations were important.
Of the Skills I had, the Fifth’s and Sixth’s used together produced an absurd effect.
But Gems didn’t let you set this kind of combo.
The Skill that manifested in each successive heir was just recorded, no selection.
“Sorry. I don’t really know…”
Aria looked apologetic; Rachel hurriedly consoled her.
“D-don’t worry about it! I’ve heard that for people carrying a Gem, normally you can’t choose — so it’s nothing to mind. Even so — five Skills, you’re an immediate combat asset.”
Hearing that, Aria looked further down.
”…I can’t use all of them yet.”
Hearing that, Larf — spear guy — sighed.
“Read the room, Rachel. — Anyway, your party’s the opposite of ours. Men-and-women together’s a hassle. I get the sad-spectator side because Rondo and Rachel let off that pink-air. …So, Lyle, which is your girlfriend? Novem-chan, I’d guess.”
Larf, since the ride was long, had thrown out a topic to ease our tension.
(A-appreciated. Better this than getting nagged by the ancestors—)
I was thinking that when Novem said:
“No, both of us are Lord Lyle’s—”
“Novem!!”
I hurried to cover Novem’s mouth, but didn’t quite make it. Aria, head down, was red in the face too.
Rachel—
“E-eh, that’s a joke, right, Aria-chan?”
Then Aria—
“He got our heirloom back, and he saved me when I was being sold off, and… so…”
“Spell it out! It causes misunderstandings, so spell it out at times like this!”
I whipped around to Aria; Novem, freed, said:
“It’s not a misunderstanding. Lord Lyle saved Aria-san, and now the three of us live under one roof.”
Novem, smiling and stating facts. Rondo’s cheek twitched into a smile.
“Eh — like — the kind of thing they call a harem in the slang sense?”
Novem, plainly:
“Not in the slang sense — it actually is a harem. It’s only two of us right now, but we plan to keep adding members going forward.”
Novem said it smiling. I was opening and closing my mouth like a fish.
She didn’t strike me as someone who couldn’t read the room — but she was serious, no question.
Larf put a hand on my shoulder.
His mouth was smiling. His eyes weren’t.
A matching hand landed on the opposite shoulder from Rondo.
Larf, low-voiced now, said:
“Let’s hear it in detail, Lyle.”
Rondo, the same:
“How enviable, Lyle. I’d very much like to hear how you pulled this off — but before that, we need to talk about, as a man, treasuring one woman.”
Larf, same energy:
“Right. Now we’ve got plenty to fill the time on the way. We’ll teach you properly, so brace yourself, Lyle.”
Novem smiling and talking about harem expansion. Aria and Rachel red-faced and listening—.
The people who could save me weren’t on this cart.
◇
Driving the cart, Zelphy listened to the young adventurers’ voices coming from behind.
She’d chewed out Lyle and the others when they’d insisted on joining the emergency request, but Novem had talked her around and she’d ended up clearing them.
And since she couldn’t single Aria out, she’d cleared Aria the same way.
Skill-wise, each one was capable.
And this time three adventurers with party-level capability had joined.
They weren’t going to fail under normal conditions, but she was uneasy anyway.
“Honestly. Sounding so cheerful… this isn’t a picnic.”
Listening to the cheerful conversation behind her, she remembered being told the same line, once.
By the now-dead adventurer.
“Zelphy-chan, this isn’t a picnic. Calm down a little.”
He’d been ribbing her, easing her tension. She’d only realized it after the fact.
Crude and foul-mouthed, but good at looking after his juniors.
Met at the Guild, they’d traded barbed remarks; she had memories of the tavern drink-offs they’d had.
“Right — I owed him a drink. Lost a bet.”
Zelphy looked up at the sky and mourned the colleague she’d spent years adventuring beside in Darion.
Retire already — that had been honest.
It was dangerous work. If you could get out, you got out early.
“For Christ’s sake. What’s the point of dying at this age — wasn’t that your line…”
He’d come at her on the offensive every time they met, but Zelphy had counted him as a fellow adventurer.
Because she’d counted him as one—
“I’ll make them pay. Make sure of it.”
Her eyes carried a sharp light.